The Role of Food Advertising in Adolescents‘ Nutritional Health Socialization

ABSTRACT

Adolescents are heavily exposed to food advertising in their daily lives. Food ads tend to juxtapose unhealthy food products with overly thin models who promote these foods. This paradoxical presentation of food and body raises important questions about adolescents’ perceptions of food ads and the body, as part of the larger realm of nutritional health. The study sheds light on adolescents’ nutritional health socialization by exploring the role of food advertising as it intersects with other socialization agents, namely parents and peers. Adolescent’s perceptions of and reactions to food ads, and the food products and models in these ads, are examined using the media practice model as the theoretical framework. In-depth interviews were conducted with 82 adolescents in middle- and high-school, taking into consideration their development, heightened vulnerability to messages about the body and appearances, and their lived experiences. The study’s findings suggest that adolescents, though skeptical of ads, internalize the mediated thin ideal and expect models in ads to be thin, beautiful, and famous. Parents emerged as positive role models for nutritional health whereas peers are more paradoxical, emphasizing the importance of exercising along with a socially-oriented consumption of junk food. Socialization messages from parents, peers, and the media interact in shaping adolescents’ reactions to food ads. Only minimal gender differences were found in adolescents’ reactions to food ads and their approach to nutritional health. Mostly, female models are expected to meet more stringent standards of thinness and beauty than male models, especially among female adolescents.

Notes

1. In a pilot study conducted as part of a larger experimental study, perceptions of the body shapes of the male and female ad models were tested to ascertain differences between the intended thin and average-weight models. Indeed, models in the thin condition were perceived as significantly thinner than those in the average-weight condition (Boys: t[97] = −4.43, p < .001, thin boys: M = 4.13, SD = 1.00, average-weight boys: M = 5.18, SD = 1.37; Girls: t[99] = −6.39, p < .001, thin girls: M = 3.74, SD = 1.13, average-weight girls: M = 5.37, SD = 1.43).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation under Grant 639/13.